What happens when an eccentric English teacher decides to stage Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" wherein the fairy Puck, is played by a fairy in the queer sense?
The Bard meets coming-out in this gay journey -and by gay- they literally break into song and dance that is unlike any musical about teenagers doing a musical. "Were the World Mine" is director Tom Gustafson's take on the Bard's most popular play of four lovers getting mixed up by a playful fairy [I just love using that word today]; cleverly blending the dynamics of Shakespeare's characters into the homophobic world in which Timothy [Tanner Cohen] sticks out like a sore thumb -bullied by the jocks, misunderstood by his own mother, and finding solace in the closet -LITERALLY, he retreats inside his room closet. Classic fairy tale, right? [there I go again, hehehehehe...]
But what is a fairy tale without magic? I believe that inside each and every one of us lives something the bard called "love-in-idleness" [if you've read/know the play, you know what I mean; but if you haven't, take it as it is] and it may take a little fairy dust to awaken it -and it's not always a purple flower as Oberon knows it to be. Not to give away anything too much, let's just say Timothy comes upon this magic to which he has the power to simply make someone love another.
"If you could make someone love you, would you?"
Sick and tired of being the odd one out [get it, "odd one OUT"?], Timothy has his way with this newfound power, and does what Puck would, finds himself in the loving arms of the Jonathan the Jock [Nathaniel David Becker], and makes sure he's not the only fairy out there. Personally, I just love the way the wit of Shakespeare's play bleeds into the film's writing ever so subtly.
When the lines of gender are blurred, and social conventions are thrown out the window, Timothy's postcard perfect suburban town finds itself in the midst of the homosexual threat. Trust me, it's not as serious as I have typed away. But it is indeed a mess of Shakespearean proportions.
Yet one wild night of doing mischief in the wood, is just that, one night. And when all else that seems romantic the moonlight submits itself to the harsh light of the sun, some things are better left to the night. But I ask you, not to be discouraged by that last sentence for there is some magic left for our fairy, and Love being the most potent magic of all leaves a few more surprises.
The rest I leave to thee...
thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa
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